As the new year kicks off, we’re cracking open a novel and a short-story collection about the uses and abuses of history. How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder: A Novel Nina McConigley (Pantheon, 224 pp., $26, January 2026) The book cover for How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder. Conventional murder mysteries keep readers guessing until the end of the story. Not so in Nina McConigley’s debut novel, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder , which begins with an admission of guilt by its narrator. In